Critical Hit 215: Deep in the Everdeep Forest, the giggle Began (S4-065)

imagecaption

season

number

air date

previous

next

Contents

After fighting through tunnels filled with Monkey-Lizards, the teams are finally able to get to the lair of the Queen Monkey-Lizard. The queen, which takes the form of an immense head and an inside-out body forming an egg chamber underground, quickly calls a handful of Monkey-Lizards to save her, but they are dispatched. However Trelle Surestep, having come to the queen, isn't sure of the best course of action. Torq starts to attack the queen however Ket jumps between Torq and the queen and Trelle grabs his wrists. Both have concerns about what will happen if they rush the job — the chamber might collapse and kill everyone, or the queen's eggs might be buried and survive.

This leads to a long debate on how it would be best to kill the queen. Torq suggests killing her right away. Trelle wants Randus Duthane to poison the queen and kill her painlessly, but Randus points out this would take a day or more, especially to design a poison specific to the queen, which wouldn't hurt anything else in the forest. Torq suggests a middle ground approach where Ket H'zard turns the queen to stone so the party can get by her and kill her last few eggs before they finish her.

Trelle wants to call for a vote on what to do, even though it's clear the elves outnumber the Torqueltones, and plan to vote for whatever she votes for. Orem Rivendorn and Torq both feel the only course of action that make sense is to kill the queen right away, and the conversation gets very heated as different conflicting plans are presented. At one point, Orem tries to rush the vote and Trelle tells everyone to ignore him, which causes Orem to walk off. Torq also gets angry and leaves after Trelle says he doesn't respect her way way of doing things.

Trelle votes for the petrification plan, which can't be put into effect until Ket has rested enough to use his spell again. All the elves agree to follow her wisdom. Ket attempts to counsel Trelle about leadership, but she feels the party does not respect her enough to follow her. They talk about how they feel the group has been falling apart since they got to Snail Rock Island. During this time, Trelle receives a sending from Stagzi saying the iron they need should be in Mootlands soon.

Finally, after everyone rests, Ket turns the Queen-head to stone, letting the team kill the eggs. Then Torq kills the queen, ending the affair. As the group leaves, Orem and Ket set everything on fire to make sure everything is dead.